I changed my mind. I want dev diaries to stop again.

[st360]

Saying "the EU 4 engine cant handle any new content except missions" does NOT mean those missions need to be easymode buff fests.

The last 3 developer diaries where buffs, buffs, buffs, buffs. Long, overdeveloped mission trees that make the same nation 5 times stronger for the player than the AI.

Oh, you want to become the HRE as an odd religion? Sorry, its impossible, unless you pick the overbuffed mission TAGs, in which case, hey its free just by clicking the mission button! Congratulations Hussite HRE emperor! Dont forget to click on your mission to spawn free Husite centers of reformation; we wouldn't want playing a heretic in crusade era Europe to feel hard!

Getting PUs is extremnly random and almost impossible? Just pick an overbuffed mission TAG and click the mission button to get 5-6 PU CBs for free, no worries.

Hungary gets crushed by the Ottomans because they are overbuffed? I guess the only solution is to overbuff Hungary too!

I'm only using examples from the last dev diary since its so fresh, but the other 2 feature such old hits as "free mission claims on anything you would ever want to conquer" as well as new ideas like "We might add a Monarch Lifespan modifier to these rewards so your Moctezuma can enjoy his newfound powers for a little bit longer. We also might consider changing his starting situation as a general into an event to further increase his survivability."

Apparently, the next developer diary is about Theodoro. Of course, it goes without saying that this 1 province city state which got conquered 10 years after the game start will get claims from India to France. The only question I have is will it get a mission for a PU on Muscovy or a mission for claims in India incase you want to colonize? And how many great powers will become auto allied to you for completing the mission "prepare for war with the Ottomans"? Also will you get a mission to become a Roman Empire nomad horde?

 

[Tydeus Cicero]

Don't read them and buy the dlc then.

 

[flammable888]

I like your Theodoro idea. I'd buy that dlc

 

[Maxxie42]

For the longest time I've been puzzled by this stance of people lamenting how powerful missions are, and how they miss the vanilla, no-missions experience ; but then getting upset if someone has the audacity to point out that they can just ignore the mission trees they deem too powerful.

I figured it's got something to do with people feeling like they're missing out if they don't click mission rewards, and I even convinced myself that I was somewhat special for being able to just ignore missions. But reading this umpteenth rant, it finally dawned on me - it's not that missions make it too easy for you, it's that they make things easy for other people. That's what bothers you, isn't it ? If other people don't struggle as much, you don't get to feel so superior when you do well. And that's what it's all really about for some players - mastering something complex, not for the satisfaction of it but for the feeling of being better than others.

Well, I'm afraid you don't get any sympathy for that.

 

[Crazymalian]

I for one like the flavour for the last nations to not get it before we move to eu5. The game has been developed for such a long time, that we need each playtrough to be different from the old playtroughs. A Theodoro mission tree seems very interesting.

 

[st360]

For the longest time I've been puzzled by this stance of people lamenting how powerful missions are, and how they miss the vanilla, no-missions experience ; but then getting upset if someone has the audacity to point out that they can just ignore the mission trees they deem too powerful.

I figured it's got something to do with people feeling like they're missing out if they don't click mission rewards, and I even convinced myself that I was somewhat special for being able to just ignore missions. But reading this umpteenth rant, it finally dawned on me - it's not that missions make it too easy for you, it's that they make things easy for other people. That's what bothers you, isn't it ? If other people don't struggle as much, you don't get to feel so superior when you do well. And that's what it's all really about for some players - mastering something complex, not for the satisfaction of it but for the feeling of being better than others.

Well, I'm afraid you don't get any sympathy for that.

There is no need to be insulting. I guess it didn't dawn for you as much as you think.

1) If I don't want overpowered missions I maybe got 3 dev diaries worth of scattered content in the last 2 years. Meanwhile people who like OP sausage mission trees got 100% of the dev diaries in the last 5 years. The last dev diary I remember being excited about was Jewish religion 3 years ago, and most of it was about Ethiopias missions.
Why shouldn't I voice my opinion over the direction of the game? People on this forum complain that South America doesn't have enough provinces; Japan has more than the entire SA continent. Are those people insecure and feeling superior every time they complain a development diary updates Europe for the 9th time while SA OPMs are left untouched since EU4s first expansion?

2) Yes, I do complain about things I don't like, good morning. When there was a bug giving Tibet players 400 dev provinces, nobody went "well you can just ignore it and not play as them, it bothers you that you don't get to feel superior". When army composition was overpowered nobody said "well you can just make a worse army, stop feeling superior".
Dont like that animist religion has no mechanics? Just don't play as animist dude. Dont like what I wrote? Just don't read my post.

3) Well done games should be balanced. I wont elaborate this further because if I say what I want to say about your tastes it will be disrespectful, but no, I dont play EU4 because I get to destroy all my enemies with OP buffs and then complain how "game gets boring after 1470, please introduce ultra very hard +500k Ottomans end boss game mode". I find nothing bad about wanting to keep the game I like on sanity rails instead of watching it devolve into a mobile game type "microrewards per second" experience.
An archbishopric can become pirates and a crusader order can become a nomadic horde? At this point, why not introduce fantasy races like orcs and elves in EU 4? We already have Vikings. If you dont like them, just dont play as them. Why not introduce airplanes and tanks? Maybe my genius ruler invents them, he is the boss of the country after all. Dont ruin other peoples fun if they want air force elves, just ignore it and dont ruin other peoples fun.

 

[iClipse]

I know where you're coming from. I do feel like the game is overall in a good state though. AI Changes made AI more aggressive. Extra reforms make every government reform other than tier 1 mostly an actual choice (at least it is for me, it's highly dependent on my goal of the campaign).

Extra events and extra flavor are also present in all updates, which makes playing specific countries more fun. Played a Denmark campaign recently and was pleasantly surprised by the sheer amount of unique events it got, going well into the 1500s.

I'm a but surprised with how they're focusing on Hungary and Austria, since Hungary is severely underrated and Austria already was top 3 strongest countries in the game. Them handing out a free PU to Spain seems like a bit too much, but let's be honest, you could already get it semi reliably in the first place, even before Emperor ever came out.

It's just that..It's ending, you know? EU4 is clearly on its last legs now. It's a 12 year old game. The content they add doesn't change anything fundamental anymore, but mostly expands existing stuff. This is obviously by design. I'm glad they went the extra mile after Leviathan in fixing the game. It has given it a true final breath of fun. Mods are flourishing as well.

In general, if you want to make a positive impact, I suggest you join the discussion in Tinto talks and give feedback there, because it's clearly EU5 that's in the works. Just too early in development to be officially announced.

 

[Jarvin]

It's just that..It's ending, you know? EU4 is clearly on its last legs now. It's a 12 year old game. The content they add doesn't change anything fundamental anymore, but mostly expands existing stuff. This is obviously by design. I'm glad they went the extra mile after Leviathan in fixing the game. It has given it a true final breath of fun. Mods are flourishing as well.

This is kind of my take as well. I absolutely hate the current state of mission trees, and for me the game is progressively getting worse with each update and DLC(super excited for not-EU5 though)

BUT I can sort of understand how we arrived here.
EU4 was a mess mechanically even before DLCs like Emperor, and there were plenty of cases where the devs would add a new system that ended up being deeply unpopular.

Then Emperor comes, and the team that worked on the game is slowly disbanded. I think Groogy was the last person from the old team that moved to different projects, and he stopped working on the game like 2-3 months before Leviathan's(1.31) release.

So you are in a spot where the people who have all the know-how of how the game works, and how to develop it are gone, and you need to create a brand-new studio to continue the development of the game. Tinto just ended up hiring modders from the community, who were already experienced in making scripted content - including mission trees

I feel like from that point onward the game might've been kind of doomed already to get into that vicious cycle of continuously having to one up the previous country rework in terms of its "flavor" and the power it provides to the players

But it was probably still the best way forward for the game, as the power fantasy mission trees still have some sizeable audience, and it also provides the devs with a straightforward, incremental way of adding content to the game and selling DLCs with it, that doesn't risk screwing up the entire game if they do something wrong.

If you screw up a country content rework, you just make one out of 400 countries in the game feel worse. If you screw up a mechanic - like they did in Leviathan - you destine the entire game to feel worse.

 

[Dunner]

I‘m in general agreement. I hate how easy the game has become. Ten years ago it was common for me to play campaigns into the 1800’s, it was also common for me to play campaigns in which I lost wars as the primary belligerent. I haven’t lost a war in years and I now rarely make it to 1600; I really miss the old experience. Its true that my skill level has improved over the years but it’s also true that the game has become a runaway train of buffbloat, and for me that cheapens the experience. And, let’s face it, it’s pretty boring to mindlessly expand when there’s no longer any real threats.

Honestly, the Tinto folks have done an amazing job of keeping the game alive since the real development ceased years ago but while they’ve added a whole lot of interesting content they also continually water down the experience. I don’t love mission trees ”guiding” my playthrough but I can accept them as a necessary evil for people that struggle in a sandbox (and at least mission trees are better than the atrocious POS focus system that HOI adopted). What I don’t accept are the massive buffs that come with the mission trees. If the AI was more capable of extracting rewards from mission trees it wouldn’t be a problem, but the AI, while somewhat improved in some areas, just cant hack it and the mission tree rewards exacerbate the problem.

I also don’t accept the “just don’t use them” argument. Very little development has gone into the last few DLCs that doesn’t directly tie to mission trees. Ignoring mission trees would essentially mean ignoring new content which would lead me to not buy DLCs which, if it happens enough, leads to less development for all of us. This is a discussion board for people to express their opinions to improve a game we’re all passionate about, the “just ignore them“ argument is a weak cop-out way to say “I’m right you’re wrong, end of discussion“.

 

[iClipse]

I‘m in general agreement. I hate how easy the game has become. Ten years ago it was common for me to play campaigns into the 1800’s, it was also common for me to play campaigns in which I lost wars as the primary belligerent. I haven’t lost a war in years and I now rarely make it to 1600; I really miss the old experience. Its true that my skill level has improved over the years but it’s also true that the game has become a runaway train of buffbloat, and for me that cheapens the experience. And, let’s face it, it’s pretty boring to mindlessly expand when there’s no longer any real threats.

But isn't this also just because you got better?

Maybe it's just me getting older, but for me the game became harder, not easier. At least in the 1600s and later. And yes, mission trees became more powerful, but considering I don't go around culture shifting, the 'gotta-catch-em-all' on permanent modifiers doesn't really apply to me all that much. We've always had powerful countries. At least since Dharma, if not earlier. Earlier it was more because of stuff like stronger national ideas though. France's Elan or Prussian Goose step reigned supreme.

I used to be able to put a stack on a mountain fort and not get engaged for 400 days. These days the AI will just engage making me bleed manpower. I used to be able to find that the Ottomans didn't expand into Mamluks because they allied Aq Qoyunlu and didn't break that alliance for 300 years. I used to be able to find Provence still allied with France and Brittany just chilling around.

With the AI changes, there are just way fewer nations around and they're running around with vastly larger armies. I regularly see Ottomans claiming Military Hegemon, Great Britain claiming Naval Hegemon and economic Hegemon being a wildcard. But they do it before I'm even able to. Maybe it's because I almost never start as a GP, but I find plenty of challenge still. Like even starting as nations like Ethiopia regularly result in the Ottomans who come knocking in 1580 with 500k troops, while I'm at 100-150k.

And I say this as a player who does regular world conquests or one faith runs. It didn't get easier for me.

 

[sinisalo]

I'm rather split down the whole thing. But if I had to sum up, I prefer the current version to the 2014 version. It has become a better game in a lot of ways.

But there are things I don't like too, how could it not be so in a game like this?

I can't even say if the game is harder or easier now, which some are discussing here. I have more powerful tools now, missions, permanent claims and other things have made me stronger and the player's life easier (remember when we had to manually explore the seas?) whilst other things have made it harder (insane force limits, zone of control)

I can live with all of this and still love the game. If I picked the thing I most dislike it is how the sandbox elements have slowly eroded in to railroaded historical encouragement. For this game to work like I want it to there cannot be a system where AI nations always get the same PUs, claims and so on every run. If mission trees were dynamic, or maybe multiple choice at least (you can take permanent claims in Anatolia, North Africa or the Balkans as an example, but only one) then I wouldn't mind it so much.

Sure mission trees are powerful for the player, but I'd trade that for removing the rewards from the AI and getting back to a more sandbox experience.

 

[jonjowett]

I‘m in general agreement. I hate how easy the game has become. Ten years ago it was common for me to play campaigns into the 1800’s, it was also common for me to play campaigns in which I lost wars as the primary belligerent. I haven’t lost a war in years and I now rarely make it to 1600; I really miss the old experience. Its true that my skill level has improved over the years but it’s also true that the game has become a runaway train of buffbloat, and for me that cheapens the experience. And, let’s face it, it’s pretty boring to mindlessly expand when there’s no longer any real threats.

I think this is pretty much my position too. My skill level has definitely improved, and most nations become rather samey after the first century of gameplay. This is exacerbated when missions help you through those difficult early days.

I think the high-level problem is that, despite all of the hundreds of nations in the game, there are only about 10 different experiences. (Maybe 30-50 if you include minor variations.) But the community keeps asking for more more more, and the obvious answer for the devs is to add some supposedly-wild-and-different mechanics for a few more nations. Hence the overpowered mission trees.

So, I get it, but I don't think there's any other option. (Unless you use a time machine to go back to the very early days of EU4, and persuade them to make significant changes to their design. But if you have a time machine, you probably have higher priorities...)

 

[Lord Sheogorath]

And to add to that, why not be even handed in nerfing the most egregiously overpowered dlc content.

Case in point:

1. Siam's national ideas were nerfed after some patches, while we still have even more OP national ideas from similar fantasy, what if, historically unsuccessful nations staying in the game (scandinavia, Poland, PLC/LPC, united HRE... many such examples).

2. Ottoman missions were nerfed after incessant mewling from byzantium or balkan players who probably think they should have a 50-50 chance in their worst day at beating ottomans and call that historical. But we are still getting similar overpowered mission trees. The devs have already changed their earlier design decisions of not granting military buffs through mission rewards.

 

[ArtFart]

I must admit this DLC is by far the weakest out of the recent DLC's, and it was probably the one I was more excited about. It really is just a paid for mod.

If these missions were in a mod, people would complain they are too OP or the choices were wrong (Austro-Hungary? Really?) yet because it's a DLC people are instead supportive? Weird.

I am all for more content, and I love the mission tree mechanic, but this DLC really ain't it. I'll still enjoy the content no doubt, and I am not going to go on a massive rant (unless this is it..) but overall I am dissapointed (with this and the recent EU5 news).

 

[Dongerino]

It's okay, EU5 will fix it. The EU4 power creep isn't going anywhere so might as well just accept it for what it's become and enjoy the world conquests.

 

[eva3071]

For the longest time I've been puzzled by this stance of people lamenting how powerful missions are, and how they miss the vanilla, no-missions experience ; but then getting upset if someone has the audacity to point out that they can just ignore the mission trees they deem too powerful.

I figured it's got something to do with people feeling like they're missing out if they don't click mission rewards, and I even convinced myself that I was somewhat special for being able to just ignore missions. But reading this umpteenth rant, it finally dawned on me - it's not that missions make it too easy for you, it's that they make things easy for other people. That's what bothers you, isn't it ? If other people don't struggle as much, you don't get to feel so superior when you do well. And that's what it's all really about for some players - mastering something complex, not for the satisfaction of it but for the feeling of being better than others.

Well, I'm afraid you don't get any sympathy for that.

They also seem to get upset when you say that they want a complete sandbox experience like Sid Meier's Civilization, while arguing for said sandbox.

 

[Blindbohemian]

For the longest time I've been puzzled by this stance of people lamenting how powerful missions are, and how they miss the vanilla, no-missions experience ; but then getting upset if someone has the audacity to point out that they can just ignore the mission trees they deem too powerful.

I figured it's got something to do with people feeling like they're missing out if they don't click mission rewards, and I even convinced myself that I was somewhat special for being able to just ignore missions. But reading this umpteenth rant, it finally dawned on me - it's not that missions make it too easy for you, it's that they make things easy for other people. That's what bothers you, isn't it ? If other people don't struggle as much, you don't get to feel so superior when you do well. And that's what it's all really about for some players - mastering something complex, not for the satisfaction of it but for the feeling of being better than others.

Well, I'm afraid you don't get any sympathy for that.

No, it’s that mission trees give the developers an excuse to do nothing at all to actually improve the game and have people drooling all over them and champing at the bit to fork over cash anyway.

 

[Parmelion]

I generally agree with you, and as a notorious mission tree hater, I believe the system has done more harm than good to the game. I am not going to defend the powercreep in any way, but there are some very important points that everybody should keep in mind:

1. EU IV is on a life support, and likely has been for some years. The decision to stop adding new provinces and any new mechanics to the game clearly indicates that. With the majority of the team likely working on Caesar, they seem to be using the few remaining resources they have to add content people want and content that sells, and you should not blame content designers for this decision.
2. You might not like it, but let's be honest, they are a company and they have to care about making money too. Johan himself has said that mission trees have extended EU IV's lifetime by several years. Why? Because people want this type of content and are willing to pay for it.
3. I do not mean it in any disrespectful way, since many of your points are valid and I personally agree with you, but you/we are likely a part of a small, loud minority. Recent DLCs such as Lions of the North and King of Kings had many of the problems you mention here, yet they are the two best rated EU IV DLCs ever.

 

[Pls fix HRE]

The last 3 developer diaries where buffs, buffs, buffs, buffs. Long, overdeveloped mission trees that make the same nation 5 times stronger for the player than the AI.

Oh, you want to become the HRE as an odd religion? Sorry, its impossible, unless you pick the overbuffed mission TAGs, in which case, hey its free just by clicking the mission button! Congratulations Hussite HRE emperor! Dont forget to click on your mission to spawn free Husite centers of reformation; we wouldn't want playing a heretic in crusade era Europe to feel hard!

Getting PUs is extremnly random and almost impossible? Just pick an overbuffed mission TAG and click the mission button to get 5-6 PU CBs for free, no worries.

Hungary gets crushed by the Ottomans because they are overbuffed? I guess the only solution is to overbuff Hungary too!

I'm only using examples from the last dev diary since its so fresh, but the other 2 feature such old hits as "free mission claims on anything you would ever want to conquer" as well as new ideas like "We might add a Monarch Lifespan modifier to these rewards so your Moctezuma can enjoy his newfound powers for a little bit longer. We also might consider changing his starting situation as a general into an event to further increase his survivability."

Apparently, the next developer diary is about Theodoro. Of course, it goes without saying that this 1 province city state which got conquered 10 years after the game start will get claims from India to France. The only question I have is will it get a mission for a PU on Muscovy or a mission for claims in India incase you want to colonize? And how many great powers will become auto allied to you for completing the mission "prepare for war with the Ottomans"? Also will you get a mission to become a Roman Empire nomad horde?

Mission tree buyers when the mission trees exclusively used to give players free rewards gives players free rewards.

 

[noldorin]

2. Ottoman missions were nerfed after incessant mewling from byzantium or balkan players who probably think they should have a 50-50 chance in their worst day at beating ottomans and call that historical. But we are still getting similar overpowered mission trees. The devs have already changed their earlier design decisions of not granting military buffs through mission rewards.

They lost the maghreb pirates doctrine before the dlc came. Afterwards, the 10% janissary discipline privilege was first reduced to 5% and then to 2.5%. There have always been Byzantine fetism and Ottoman nerf cries in the forum, this does not surprise me at all.